Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Painting a Palomino

Palomino, casein, 5 x 8 inches 
I'm painting a palomino at a ranch near Dubois, Wyoming. 


I've got my easel at a standing height outside the corral. The horses are sedated, because before we get there, they have had their teeth floated and they get freeze branded


So they're sleepy and my palomino stands there long enough for me to get the lay-in. Here's how things look after about 10 minutes. I'm drawing totally with the brush—no time for pencil prelims.

Of course he moves out of the pose, but other horses take similar poses, and my palomino returns a couple of times to a semblance of where he started.


John Seerey-Lester sits behind us, helping young artists with advice about sketching from observation.


 Here's John's sketch of me (gray shirt at left) and the folks hanging around the horse corral.


The SKB Workshop is held every year in September. It's a gathering of artists in Dubois, Wyoming with a group of instructors and about 150 students swapping ideas about wildlife art and landscape painting. It's very economical for a week of instruction, food and lodging. If you want to join in though, you've got to sign up right when they announce it, because the 150 places sell out in just a day or two.

1 comment:

Tom Hart said...

Thanks for taking us along(virtually speaking), James! The palomino and the sheep are, once again, stellar paintings.

Sedation - now there's a model-handling approach I hadn't thought of!